What would you do with $1,000?

This $1,000 is lying on the street, figuratively. It is totally found money. You found it, you picked it up and you put it in your pocket. No strings attached.

What you would do?

I think what you’d do with this $1,000 says a little bit about who you are and what your financial priorities are.

If you have a strong desire to spend it all, I understand. It is found money after all and life is for the living. It’s time to have some fun, right?

If you have a strong desire to save it all, again, I understand. RRSPs and TFSAs and the like are great retirement vehicles. Maybe you have a high-interest savings account that could use this money.

Maybe you want to pay down debt. Again, I’m with you here. I hate debt.

Spend or save or pay down debt? Maybe all three? Something else?

I’d probably take $250 and spend it, have some fun with that amount. I’d take the rest, the $750 and save it. Actually, the $750 would be invested. I’d continue my mortgage prepayment plan as is and invest the $750 into my TFSA. Yes, that is exactly what I’d do. What would I buy in my TFSA? I’d probably buy a Canadian dividend-paying stock. Until I figured out which one, the $750 would sit there in cash. Yes, that would be my plan for sure. Come to think of it, I’d probably buy some Canadian financial stock. They seem to pay steady dividends and are fairly stable, as far as stocks go.

Good, I’m glad I’ve figured that out. If I stumbled upon $1,000 of “found money”, I’d save most of it and spend a bit of it. I like that plan – let’s do it.

Wait, where is the $1,000 coming from again?

What would you do with your $1,000 windfall? What does that say about you and your financial priorities?

Hum, very interesting. I would usually put it away towards either investing ordebt servicing depending on what the priority is at the time. But if I was to find it tomorrow, it would probably go towards a new iMac (or refurbished since I am cheap). It’s time to upgrade computer and I am just dragging it out …

I wouldn’t blame you one bit. Funny how you responded though, since you’re already so focused: you make a forecast of your expenses to “make a spending plan to put that money to work so we can meet our financial goals.”

I suspect because you have such focus, you feel more freedom to have some fun? Thoughts Echo?

I would follow a very similar path to the one you outlined MOA. I’d probably go out for a nice meal with it, maybe see a show, then use the rest to pay down my mortgage and give a nice little push to my Smith Manoeuvre.

Lets be perfectly honest here and get real – Spend it baby. New cell phone, stock the wine cellar, dinner at McDonalds for the whole family, gas in the car, and $200 on the credit card just to feel good about myself. What investment plan?

It’s all fun and games until your best friend comes up to you and says “crap I was just goign to pay my loandlord the rent – and I lost my money on the way. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do, as they are in total tears…” Karma is a funny thing, I don’t really know what I would do with it to be perfectly honest.

I’d probably do something similar to you. Spend a little, save a little. I’m on a balance kick right now, trying best to balance frugality with quality of life, saving with spending, today with tomorrow. I’m finding my inner chi!

We sort of did ‘find’ $1000 this year as we came across a new VERY passive income stream that generated $1000 in about a half a year. We decided that any money that came to us from this source (free money) we were going to put aside to invest into something that would make more money out of it. My husband has used some of it to finance a couple of other income streams and we are just dipping our toes into investing in stocks/bonds/mutual funds so we plan to use some more of the money to gain some experience in this area. If we had consumer debt we would put it towards that.

We got and unexpected inheritance worth $2G, so I put it on my Heloc so I don’t have to sell off any stock for a few months. (no trade fees no lost Divs) The missus said she wants to get a new pair of jeans, LOL, big spender EH!

Old me would spend every penny of it and another $100 because why not?? I just found $1000! But now- I would be so awesome with it- $100 in savings, $200 towards my DSLR camera fund, and the rest to debt!

I have been hankering an iPad for a while, so that would be the first thing. After that I would just park anything left away and use it for the little expenses that come up. $1,000 is in that fun money range as opposed to the larger windfalls where you would be a little guilty blowing a lot of it. One grand is a reasonable and justifiable treat for yourself